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Saturday

Aug 31, 2013 at 12:01 AM

TRACY - High schools welcomed the arrival of a new football season.

Bob Highfill

TRACY - High schools welcomed the arrival of a new football season.

Nowhere was the sense of renewal more profound than at Tracy High, where the school's 75-year-old legendary former football coach, Wayne Schneider, was honored prior to the first game played at the new, state-of-the-art facility that bears his name - Wayne Schneider Stadium.

Peter B. Kyne Field was torn down to make room for a nine-lane mondo track, synthetic playing surface, large metal seating section on the home side and ample room on the visitor's side. The project took just more than a year to complete.

Schneider had been through a similar ceremony in 2008, when the field was named Wayne Schneider Stadium. But Friday's dedication seemed to carry more permanence.

"They really built a first-class venue here," Schneider said.

Schneider led Tracy to 224 wins, two section championships and 16 league championships in 29 years at the helm before he retired in 1994. In his era, the city had one high school and most every kid who went through Pop Warner hoped to one day to play for Coach Schneider.

"I'm glad they named it after him," said Mark Ornellas, a Tracy native, who played on Schneider's 1982 Sac-Joaquin Section championship team.

Schneider's players were hard-nosed and disciplined. They represented a town built on hard work. They were perfect instruments for his tough brand of football.

"Our kids played hard. They were farm kids," Schneider said. "They were hard workers. They always wanted to be a Bulldog and they wanted to win. They expected to win."

For miles, the lights of Kyne Field, the Bulldogs' former digs, could be seen for miles Friday nights. The stadium was almost always packed, and the overflow crowd would stand on the dirt track surrounding the grass and dirt playing field. The atmosphere, the small-town feel, was as good as anywhere in the area.

Ornellas' wife, Marie, said, "Being born and raised in Tracy, even from across town, all you would see were the Friday night lights."

On Friday, East Street was closed for several blocks along the west side of the stadium to control the flow of traffic, as close to 4,000 fans watched the Bulldogs play Sierra. "This is the way Tracy used to be, when the town shut down and everybody would come to the football game," Mark Ornellas said.

The students in their cheering section were loud with excitement. Fans of all ages were impressed with the stadium, which cost $8.8 million through funds from Measure E, a $51 million bond voters passed in 2006.

Not many seemed to be in a nostalgic mood for the Bulldogs' old digs, with no disrespect to Kyne. That stadium, as great as it was, had long and dutifully served its purpose.

"It's a great thing that's happening," said Rosalinda Rodriguez, who coaches frosh-soph volleyball at Tracy. "We definitely needed the stadium. We were one of the few schools that was left without a state-of-the-art stadium, and I think it's going to bring a lot more support to the school. I think it's a great thing."

Schneider also welcomes the progress. Tracy's oldest high school finally has a new stadium after neighboring West and Kimball high schools had new stadiums erected in the past five years.

"I'm an old person, but I like the new stuff," Schneider said.

Wayne Schneider Stadium is the 14th new or refurbished high school stadium in the area since 2003. On Sept. 6, Cesar Chavez High School in Stockton will open its refurbished stadium, bringing the total to 15.